The Truth About CDCR: When Following Orders Can Cost You Everything

We talk straight about what we would change as former CDCR lieutenants, and why integrity matters more than titles, overtime, or protecting administrators. Kenny breaks down real use-of-force stories, ISU cases, and the mental toll of a system that punishes people for telling the truth. 

• corruption that becomes visible once you sit in ISU level meetings 
• why verbal unlawful orders trap young officers 
• the Training Day moment when you realize the game is rigged 
• two 40mm launcher shootings and the tactical reality of backstops 
• reading pre assault cues by studying “normal” yard behavior 
• de escalation that works and the moment it must end 
• restraints as safety and as a practical de escalation tool 
• Mini 14 hesitation and how politics changes outcomes 
• CCPOA representation concerns and why outside counsel can matter 
• ISU drug interdiction methods using calls, kites, letters, visiting busts 
• FBI cases that show how dark offenders can be 
• identity, depression, and why the job cannot be your whole life 
• leadership that trains, writes things down, and refuses illegal shortcuts 

Hey Warriors, if you haven't already signed up for our all-new website, HectorBravoshow.com, make sure you sign up at the link below, HectorBravoshow.com to watch explicit, uncensored, never before seen prison footage. 
If you like what you saw, make sure you hit the subscribe button. 

Transcript

Welcome Back And Guest Return

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back to our channels, Warriors. We are still growing today. Another banger for you guys, man. I brought in a guest that we've had before. You guys loved him so much. He was a legend in CDCR. We have none other than Kenny, who flew in all the way from Alabama.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hector Bravo on him. Chaos is now in session.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

See you, bro. Thank you for taking that trip, man. How was your trip? How was the flight? It was it was good. It was really good.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

And I got in late last night, but you know, we got enough to wrap.

Would We Do It Differently

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Is it a little warmer than you thought here in San Diego? Uh it's warmer here, yeah, because we're in the 60s right now over there. Oh, dang, it's like 92 by now. Forget all that. So let's kick it off, man. One of our special friends had a question for the both of us, and we said we would help that individual out. And the question that was proposed was as being former lieutenants, knowing what we know now and how the state of the California Department of Corrections currently is, would we have done anything different?

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Yes. Would have done something different. However, there were times in my career where I knew I would talk to young officers and let them know some of the corruption that I discovered as an officer in the department and teach them how to respond. You know, how to respond to uh an administrator that comes and gives them something to an order.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Verbal they know that that's wrong. How many years did you serve total? Twenty-three. Twenty-three years beginning in what year? 1998. Oh man, you're OG.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

So so what you're saying is that you observed corruption early on and that you always knew you were going to speak to the officers about as an officer.

Seeing Corruption From The Inside

SPEAKER_02 1:59

I learned that you know, we talked about the previous cast. Right. Uh I learned as an as an ISU officer. Now the first eight years maybe in my career, I really didn't see it because I worked on a level four yard. Right. And it was just business, business, business every single day. That heightened um you know vigilance that we all have experience.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

And that was that Satif, Newcorker?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

With that SADF, yeah. And um uh it was it was a busy yard, and we had you know, homicides, riots, different kinds of things. And but when I went to ISU, and you sit on in meetings with administrators, you you begin to kind of like, holy crap, it's not supposed to be like this. It really isn't. I felt like Ethan Hawk in training day. I felt like, yeah, bro, how can it be like this? How how can you have an officer have some have me contributing factor of somebody killed and you're hiding it?

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Oh, God, bro. How yeah, I want you to elaborate. Let's say I'm a youngster. I'm for some reason I don't know what the movie Training Day is. Can you elaborate on what Ethan Hawk felt or what he was exposed to that made him question the very system he was working in?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Real real quick, you know what's funny?

SPEAKER_03 3:26

You know, I my cadets before they graduated. They'd never seen Training Day. You know what movie I showed him? Training Day. Were you allowed to? Or it didn't matter. What are they gonna do? I played American Me one time, maybe or maybe not in the TTA.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I I I showed it and I said, tell me the moment that he was compromised. Ethan Hawk. When he fucking hit the crag. Exactly. And then I told him, what you're gonna see is you're gonna feel like Ethan Hawk with all this crap going on, you're getting played until you finally realize it. Ooh, until you finally realize it, and the moment that dude Denzel Washington hit shoots his friend in the chest, and then you're like, holy crap, these people are insane. That's what I felt like in the department.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

This is nuts, bro. Because it's so true. Yeah. It is true, dude. Covering up murders. Like nobody, first of all, nobody should be covering up murders, right? If you're a regular civilian, you shouldn't cover up a murder, let alone a sworn peace officer, dude.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

You know what? You know what you're doing when you when you let stuff like that go and you're an officer? You're disrespecting the badge. You're disrespecting your oath. Your oath wasn't to those stinking administrators. Your oath wasn't to the warden, your oath wasn't to your fellow officers, your oath or your sergeant. Correct. Because if they ask you to do something you know that's not right, not according to the penal code and not according to Department of Operations manual, not according according to Title 15. When you know that's true, you disrespect the badge every time you compromise and say, hey, you know what, I'm good with it. That's why we're in a situation you have enough of us speaking out.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Yeah, we are in this situation. And we say we because we still take pride in our former employment, bro. We didn't put in all that work and time to just like turn our backs to the very system that we gave our our pretty much everything to.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

I had a uh retired friend from VSP told me, hey man, you're retired, just kick back. And I said, you know what? I still care about the people that are there. I got friends, I got cadets that graduated that are moving up through their department, and they may not end up in the situation that I did being tried to send to, you know, they tried to send me to prison, all this kind of stuff they tried to do to me. They might not face that, but then again, they might. They might. And real quick, you're going along in your in your career, and if you don't if you're not vigilant and keeping what you know, that badge, you know, what you swore to keep, um, the snake's gonna can bite you. You may not even know it's there. It's like a copperhead in in Alabama. Copperheads can hide. Do you want to real well?

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Do you want to hear a funny story? My buddy, he was IST manager at Donovan, and we got word through the rumor mill that he was gonna get moved out. And he was like, nah, nah, they're not gonna move me out. They love me. The chief deputy warden loves me. I'm like, bro, you're getting moved out, bro. Go bid for another job. Bro, they moved his ass. He was pissed. I got a 7219 and I put two little snake bites in the back, and I put his comment, I didn't see it coming. I'm like, I fucking told you, bro, you're in the snake pit. You can't trust these people. No.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

I had a friend at the academy, and so they were doing the, you know how you do the extra introduction at the academy, you're telling the cadets about what to expect. He tells them, you're gonna be working nights 10 to 6 or 10 to 30 to 6:30, you're gonna be working third watch. You want to see your kids to bed, but you can't anymore because you work. Two girls, two females, stood up and said, Hey, what are you talking about nights? He said, You have to work all kinds of shifts. And they said, We thought this was like eight to four. They got their bags and went home. I mean, that's kind of good. The administrator at the academy tried to write him up for telling them the truth. Oh. So you tell me, you might tell some, that and that's what I'm trying to say in this, as you might tell some of your officers or share your experiences, right? And you tell them, hey, the truth. People behind you don't want you to tell the truth.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

That's a fact. People above you don't want you to tell the truth.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

They don't want they yeah, and above you. They don't want you to, they don't want you to speak the truth.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

So then let me ask, let me frame the question that they've all the brand spanking you correctional officer that was asking you an OG for some advice. Hey, I have 31 years to go. Do you think I'm gonna make it?

SPEAKER_02 8:39

I the way I see things now, how can you say? I would just tell him, hey, do what you can, do what you need to do to keep the law, keep your integrity, because you may not make it to that 30 years, but your integrity will still be intact. And that's I would say I know it's a big thing. Well, we gotta make money in this world and all that, but I know it's a big thing. But you once you sell your integrity, it's sold.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

In your time in the department, have you seen people sell out their integrity? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

I've seen people lie. I've seen I had an AW, you know, like I said, the one that tried to send me to prison and set everything up and set people up. Two sergeants I know that got fired for they shouldn't have got fired. And I'm I'm not afraid to say their name because I've talked to them before, Clayton Holmes and Chris Goodis. Great guys, awesome sergeants. Or well, actually, uh Clayton Holmes was an officer, but Chris Goodis was a sergeant, but they were IGIs, and they were awesome at their job. But they were fired for absolutely ridiculous reason. Uh, but they were set up. Oh, I mean they were set up.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Walk me through, because I know you wanted me to bring up the shooting of the 40 millimeter incidents. Was this one when you were a correctional officer?

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yes, I was uh uh observation one.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

The yard observation?

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Uh yard observation on facility C to level 4180.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

What prison?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Um Satif. And uh, and that's what I want you correctional officers that are listening to pay attention. Uh I heard from the from the building, you know, the we used to have MTAs and they'd go out and pass the meds. And uh I heard him ask for a sergeant. So one of the sergeants went up. I thought, what the heck's going on? So anyway, now here's the sergeant. I was a patient one, I got one being escorted to the clinic. So that's strange. Strange for you know, something like that. Something went on. If I learned how to read people, and I'm looking at you right now, you gotta learn to read people. Especially inmates, you have to learn how to read them, even your partners too. But anyway, I could look at this inmate and I could tell he was gonna blow.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Hey Warriors, if you haven't already signed up for our all-new website, HectorBravoshow.com, make sure you sign up at the link below, HectorBravoshow.com to watch explicit, uncensored, never before seen prison footage. With that, love you, keep pushing forward.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

I just I could just tell his body language, his muscles were he had no shirt on, no cuffs.

SPEAKER_04 11:49

Damn, big mistake.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Big mistake. So he they escorted him through, and he got to the clinic, and he was probably I don't know, five feet inside the door. And all of a sudden, I seen him, and my partner, Alex, um all of a sudden he started they start this dude was assaulting him, and he fell to the ground, and he was hitting him in the face and head. The alarm was on. I was on the gun. So what does that wall? 15 feet, 20 feet? I can't remember. Anyway, the clinic door was there and I could see him.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

But from your elevation point, is the clinic in front of you or directly, or is it directly beneath you?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

I moved myself to the front, to the door up above, so I could look down and see directly see the door and the him.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

You you could look into the door from your position?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

I could see him, yeah. Okay. And I could see him, you know, his he was getting battered in the face.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

The inmate or the officer?

SPEAKER_02 13:02

No, I was messing around, bro. Yeah. The officer.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

You said it was back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Yeah. And I picked up the mini. However, that's another thing you people have to think about. I couldn't shoot. Why? Well, because it's a fucking narrow doorway. Narrow doorway, but what else? I couldn't see what was on the other side. Correct, the backstop beyond. I couldn't see. So, and I'm gonna say this, and I will say this uh because you know my faith. I knew it was God that led me to to just I picked the 40. I didn't even think and I just fired. I didn't even aim, bro. I didn't even aim. I felt like David with the sneaking, you know, sling hitting Goliath in the in the forehead, and it hit the dude right in the left side in the in the kidney. Knocked him over, but this dude was so jacked that he kept going. Of course. But I had allowed enough time for my rest of the staff to get there, and I seen the sergeant hitting this dude in the head with a baton, um, and then they disappeared. Of course, all I could hear was stop resisting. But I'll just say, I mean, I'm sure he was resisting, but 100%, bro. I could only hope I could only imagine he was resisting. The dude went to the hospital with a lacerated kidney. Oh, could you hit him? He hit him in the back. And uh it was with the uh the blue tip exactly sponge round. SpongeBob. And uh one of the officers later, he was a he was an OG for me, was you know, had more time than I did. And he said, uh, dude, I I had the dude on the right side that was trying to, you know, take him down. I heard the stinking round hit in my left ear. It hit him in the back. By about that much away from my ear. No way. Yeah, he said, dude, if you would have if you would have hit me, I would have stabbed you. Oh, told me that.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

But I That'll kill you, bro. That 40 will kill somebody.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Yeah, but I I just knew I had to react and and uh I was good at what I did. I always practiced and shot that 40 when we were on the range. And uh so I, you know, I uh I was so jacked that uh I felt like I I wish I could have jumped down and jumped in it.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Did you ever run into that inmate ever again in your career? He he sued me. Of course, of course he did.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

He sued he sued me, and that that's one of the three times I got sued.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

But as we as we we we we we started talking about uh this interview was about like, hey, new COs, you're gonna face corruption. But will new correction officers also face litigation?

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Sure. Uh just for doing your job. And here's the sad thing is a lot of times you get sued, the attorney general uh uh represents you. A lot of times they give throw the inmate a bone just to get rid of the lawsuit because it costs them less for that than to have the litigation and you have to pay for lawyers and all this stuff. So sometimes you won't have that.

Second 40mm Use And Lawsuits

SPEAKER_03 16:34

You won't have uh you'll get the paperwork and and and so that way that one time you saved your partner's life, man, as he was getting his ass kicked in the clinic. What about the other time that you shot the 40? You said how many times did you shoot total?

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Uh between the 37 and the 40, 157. Yeah. Yeah, the big you know, the big L L8, big Bug Bertha, and a lot of times you're shooting gas. Um but there was always something going on.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

What about that second time?

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Uh the second time, uh again, I want to say you guys, man, you always gotta be watching. Uh I always knew where my partners are at. Uh so I'm watching my sergeant's on the yard for some reason. He was doing overtime uh I don't want to say his name, but yeah, let's try to leave some names. Well, I will. Uh Sergeant Bear, and uh he was on the on the yard, and uh the yard staff were against building four, which is pretty far away. And uh Sergeant was probably in front of me, maybe I don't know, 30 yards away. He wasn't very far. And all of a sudden I seen this Sereno walking towards him. Okay. One of the things is when you have a Sireno, they always have somebody come with them to find out they're not ratting or whatever. So I'll right away I know something's wrong. And uh I see him get within a certain distance, and I said, Hey Sarge, are you okay? Oh, on the radio, and on the radio, and he says, uh, this guy's acting weird. Let me give me some staff. So they start walking. But all of a sudden I seen this guy, his hands are going up. So again, with God's divine help, I shot. I just shot the 40. Because before his hands even got up here, I already hit him in the back. So when I hit him in the back, same way, same area, Sarge kind of knocked him back, Sarge just went boom, and they went at it. Well, come to find out what happened was uh this dude was uh a J cat and the Serenos didn't want him. Oh so what they told him was, hey, you go hit that pinchihudo over there and we'll we'll we'll make you good again. Right? Yeah. So Sarge was like, and this is he later on when I was promoting, trying to promote the VSPW, the custody captain of VSPW called him. We actually called the watch office looking for some Inf Tel on me, right? They always call. Right. And he said, Hey, you better hire that guy. He saved me. He saved, he saved me from assault. And he said, before the dude even had a chance to hit me. So that those are the times that stick in my memory most of all. There's there were several times I shot.

Reading Cues Before Violence

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Those are beautiful examples of understanding your environment, reading people, reading the room. All right, have you ever heard the term you don't know what you don't know? Yes. I believe deeply in my heart that these new correctional officers do not know what they don't know. So, dude, in the first instance, you mentioned you've seen the dude agitated, right? That's a cue, right? Yeah. In the second one, you said there's one surrey walking towards a sergeant. That's weird. Yeah. What cues should officers be paying attention to to premeditate their next steps?

SPEAKER_02 20:30

If you if you don't study and you don't learn, look at the yard. I don't care if it's a level two yard, level one yard, level four yard, look at the yard, watch what they're doing. I'm in a gun and all of a sudden everybody stops playing basketball. That's weird. Or uh the Serenos are working out, but now they're not working out. Or whatever the situation may be, if you don't study their normal, then you don't know when something's gonna happen. It's just like the the FBI or the the Treasury Department. They don't study the the uh counter counterfeit, they study the real bill so that they know when something's wrong like that. You study the real, you study the normal everyday activities of an inmate. I like that, bro.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

And then you get to know when something's off like that. What are some tight h telltale signs that an inmate's about to kick my fucking ass?

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yeah, well that again, you it depends on your inmate. It depends on your your inmate.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

And uh I mean the motherfucker's telegraphing it. And when we say telegraphing, we're saying telegraphing it because we know what signs one good thing is his stance.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Right? Is his stance uh the way he's talking to you? Meaning what tone? Tone, words, uh volume, volume. Uh you could see it in the jawline and their face, uptight. You could tell when someone was mad. Um, you could tell when someone's you know ready to to blow, basically.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

I'm sure you have. Have you recently seen the, I believe, Ohio correctional officer female that got stomped out by the inmate? He said, ma'am, don't don't do that. And she said, uh put turn around and put you in cuffs.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, and it to me in that situation, she she kind of escalated the thing, which you didn't have to go that way the way it went. You know what I mean? Uh it didn't have to go uh to that extreme. She could have handled that a different way or ask for additional staff. Sergeant. Hey, don't be Mr. or Mrs. Macho, don't act like you you can do this all by yourself. Right? Because some of us some guys that I used to work with probably could handle stuff like that by themselves. And then some couldn't.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

But even then, even if you could handle it, it's best to avoid situations like that or mitigate situations like that. Yeah, use your brain. De-escalate situations. Yeah, use your brain. So if I'm a new correction officer and I say, hey, uh Lieutenant Jimenez, I want to use my brain and and and de-escalate situations, what are some techniques I could use?

SPEAKER_02 23:29

You took well, first of all, you get you gotta have that distance between you and that inmate always. Six second rule, right? Or 12 foot, 12 foot, 12 foot, 21 foot or whatever. They can get up on you like that. Well, anyway, they're a lot quicker than than we are, you know, because like I said before, when I was here, some of those guys are used to fighting all the time, and we're not, I'm just not as a whole. Anyway, some of the things you uh can do is you lower your tone. Right? You lower your tone, you begin to speak to the inmate and the kind of to help them understand the situation. Hey, look, dude, I told you I was gonna work on your bed move, but right now, sergeant's busy, I'm busy, I'm gonna work on it. Don't make me bother the sergeant because he's gonna be pissed off, and then you ain't gonna get your bed move anyway. He's gonna get your bed move for dad's sake. So you make them, you reason with them and make them understand. This is not a personal thing. I'm not trying to disrespect you. I'm not trying to ruin your program, I'm not trying to, you know, make you go somewhere you don't need to go. It's just gonna take a little time and there's stuff going on and whatever. And but you don't uh, you know, hey, I'm doing this search. I'm gonna search, man.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

And oh that lady said, I don't give a fuck about that yellow line. It's probably not a good idea to just talk sideways out the side of your name.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

No, because what you're doing, you're talking to them like they're not a man. And let me tell you, are there killers in prison? Well, absolutely. And you don't, I mean, unless you read all their C files, you don't know. Right? And you could be a level two or a level one, but they they came in years ago for murder.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Aside from that, they got a safe face in front of the other inmates, right? They can't be looking upon like a week, they're gonna get yelled at by the CO and not do anything about it.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

You know, it's funny, and uh, and that's another thing, the inmates have changed quite a bit because back in the day, but if they were on, if they were wrong, you could straight get at them and and they were understood. I had a partners that would throw them in the cell, and they never came back out because it popped out because they knew they were wrong. Right. They knew they were, you know, they knew they and they knew that they might get in trouble for with their people for the way they acted towards you.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

That's in a old school structured setting. But right now it's 2026, it's a free-for-all. It's a free-for-all, dude. You got new generation inmates, new generation staff.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

As a supervisor, I put some chevrons on you. How do you navigate those waters?

SPEAKER_02 26:18

That training, uh, as as a sergeant with your staff as often as you can. Um help them to understand, do a it doesn't it it's not bad doing scenarios. It's not bad making you think, it's not bad giving them stuff to to navigate how we talk to inmates. Uh and here's another thing the de-escalation, don't let it go to the extreme, right? To where you got a cuff on a dude and he's wrestling with you, and you're trying to de-escalate, uh you're trying to de-escalate. De-escalation's over. De-escalation's over when the inmate begins to resist and you're trying to affect custody.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Kenny, if I'm a correctional officer and I go to reach my hand on an inmate's wrist because I am about to put him in handcuffs and he jerks away, what should my next immediate action be? Yeah. Call the alarm and and you know, put him down. You physical force. He just actively resisted you. And per the penal code and use of force policy uh to overcome resistance. You yeah. He's practically gonna batter you. We don't know that.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Yeah. And uh, but the de-escalation uh is over at that point. Why is it over at that point? Because they escalated. Okay, D and then escalate. They asked A-escalated, so it's time to it's time, it's on.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

So basically, what you're saying is the inmate's gonna take it wherever the inmate's gonna take it, and he dictates whether the force gets used on him or not. Yes. Because according to, like you said, the penal code and and and your training. But you're saying, as a correction officer, it is wise to de-escalate situations if possible, definitely verbally communicate. Absolutely, yeah. Use your brain. Yeah. Because what's the goal? Is the goal to go to work and be a badass and uh push your authority around?

SPEAKER_02 28:27

No. And the the goal is not to come and get your way all the time either. Elaborate. Uh it's you're dealing with an inmate. Heck, I'm gonna get this dude to do whatever I want. And and to me, that's not the goal of being uh an officer. Uh we're supposed to keep safe uh safety and security, but also inmates after a while, they begin to respect you because they know you deal uh levelly, honestly, and you're just trying to run your building and your or your yard or whatever. I had white boys that would come on the yard and do the do this, and I put them in check. I said, get off my yard. Why are you why are you doing how Hitler on my yard? Well, guess who seen that? The blacks, the Mexicans. So I just told them, hey, I don't let the bulldogs bark.

unknown 29:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

Don't let the white boys do the how Hitler. And I said, it's the same for them as it is for for so they see that, and they see that you're doing things fairly after a while, and they began to, hey, your word is like gold. Right? Your word is like, hey, you know what, this dude's honest, and right? He's asking me to lock it up for somebody else. I probably wouldn't be arguing, but I know that he's on the up and up. I know that he's straight.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Would you say that some of these officers almost make it challenging more for themselves by not acting that way?

Mini 14 Decisions And Politics

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Oh, well, yeah, because you want things to go smoothly during your day. You don't want that, you don't want chaos. Okay? You don't want complete chaos. Inmates are gonna do their thing to each other, whether it's riots or assaults or you know, pagasos on the yard or or whatever. They're gonna they're gonna do that. We're just there to clean up the mess. Clean up the mess. And believe it or not, especially I learned this as a gunner, they want you to act. Facts. Because they don't want you to look bad. They won't they don't want to look bad in front of their homies. They also don't want to die. Facts. They also don't want to be the one who, you know, uh the inmates uh when I was in facility C, believe it or not, I would sit, I took, I took all the rounds out, but I would sit there and I would twirl the mini four uh 14. Not when the art is out or anything, but I and I would just, you know, do the thing. And and uh they knew hey dude's up there, he's he's serious. And I had a guy come to me, he said, Hey man, I was telling dude about your skills. And I said, Yep, and they said, Hey, you you just it doesn't matter who you're gonna shoot, you're just gonna I said, No, it it matters. I'm gonna shoot people that are doing the wrong thing and they're breaking the law or trying to kill somebody. So that if they know, if they know that you've got that mentality, then guess what? Most of the a lot of the times they won't they won't do what they're gonna do and they'll save it for another day, or they'll go somewhere way far on the yard where you, you know, you I I I think that's the kicker.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

If I were to put a little green jumpsuit on you right now, Kenny, in 20 right now, February 28, 2026, and I put you in a control booth of Salinas Valley State Prison, and you saw the Grinch murder take place two-on-one, are you or are you not utilizing the Mini 14 with what you've seen thus far?

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Uh first, second stab wound, and that dude's really not fighting back and and uh decapacitated. I'm shooting. I I'm shooting. Uh I'm shooting.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

In 2020, you're trying if it happened today, and you and this isn't Monday morning quarterback, it's it's new experience. I'm shooting because it's my job. I'm shooting because you swore to uphold life. Where is the disconnect? Where is the disconnect from your perspective between new correctional officers that have just adamantly, adamantly made the decision to never fire that meaning? Adamantly.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

The disconnect is because uh administration does not want you to do your job anymore. They don't want the paper, they don't want the notoriety, they don't want the paperwork, they don't want any of that because of what's up, the people that are up here. That's the political and I told you before. It's not law enforcement anymore. It's political. It's politics. Should corrections be political or politics? No, how can you it's life, it's safety, it's how do you pay play politics that way? You can't. Is an inmate life less valuable than a correctional officer's life? It's a life is a life. Thank you. I look at it from God's perspective. It doesn't it doesn't matter. Yes, they're in prison, yes, they're no, and then they're killing somebody like you know the Grinch murder. They're it's a life that I gotta defend another life. Is that gonna put my life in in jeopardy?

SPEAKER_03 34:09

I mean, you're probably gonna go you're probably gonna go through the ringer, but who that comes with the territory. That's why you get paid$100,000 a year.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

And I think that they just don't don't understand this, the the seriousness of what you're what they're dealing with.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Do you think once I'm it to my understanding, it's currently in litigation, and this is me playing dumb right now. Do you think once questions start getting asked on a federal court stand, it's gonna change the tone of things?

SPEAKER_02 34:38

I I'm not sure. Um it's hard to say. I mean, you you've got such a political downturn um in law enforcement everywhere. It's not just CDCR.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

I don't know, bro. Cops are putting in work lately if you look on YouTube or running over people.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

But I mean, I'm talking about California.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

What did the last one do? He did something crazy. They did some crazy shit recently. Well, he ran them over. Oh, and then he hit him over.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Well, I saw that. I saw that.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

I I saw that. And and but I'm I'm just saying as a as a whole, there's a politics being thrown out everywhere. It's, you know, especially with DAs and you know, them judges, not you know, not dropping, you know, them dropping charges or whatever, and letting child molesters out of prison, uh giving a parole.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Before we talk about your time in ISU as an officer, sergeant, and lieutenant, what is your take on CCPOA since we're talking about politics?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Um I was when I became a supervisor, I got rid of CCPOA. You did? I did. I kept mine.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

I just I went to C CSO. Um did you lose anything by getting rid of CCPOA? Not really. Not you didn't lose healthcare. I didn't lose I didn't lose anything. Um did CCPOA ever present you with representation at any point in time?

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Uh the the first few times when I, especially with the charges I got when I was in ISU, uh they represented me then just once. And then the other times I had lawyers myself. Um the best thing to do is forget CCPOA lawyers, they're worthless.

unknown 36:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

You're get rid of them and get your own representation. I know it's gonna cost money, but uh you get your own representation.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

Let's talk let's let's talk about that. It's gonna cost money. From my uh experience of being out of the job for three years, man, CEOs are extremely, you know, they say it in Spanish, godo, cheap. They're very like tight with their money, dude. Yeah, but it's uh you're you're paying in the long run. You're paying out more by not getting a good lawyer and going with CCPOA instead.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Yeah, yeah. To be honest, a lot of times uh CCPOA lawyers just want you to, you know, uh go ahead and uh give it away. Well, you're gonna take yeah, take it in the shorts. You know what I mean? And uh and it'll save the series charges or whatever. Uh I don't know. It's just another thing with CCPOA, uh uh uh they were looking out for their own cells after a certain point in time. Uh they started looking out for their executive counsel? Yeah, they're what they had going on, and uh I was happy. Uh they they did us well. The days of Don Novi, and we got paid, got raises and things like that. And and uh the three 3.0 was definitely a big a big factor with me uh because I got to retire, you know, you get to retire after 50. Or, you know, 50, you're 50 years old with 20.

Is CDCR Still A Good Career

SPEAKER_03 37:57

So let's fill in the crowd on the current status of CDCR. We spoke about corruption, we spoke about 40 millimeter, we spoke about mini 14, and we spoke about CCPOA. What if I'm just some youngster from Central California, like, yeah, my TIO's a CEO, my TIO started in 1990 in Corcoran, the job is great, he makes a lot of money, he makes a lot of overtime, my TIO said this job is the best. Is that an accurate statement? Or have times changed?

SPEAKER_02 38:29

I I I would tell him, hey, you really need to seriously think about whether or not you're gonna pay the price or not. Because things are different. Things are different. We got a, you know, hey, let's build a$236 million cafe in uh at San Quentin, and we got homeless on the street or whatever. And that's politics, but politics, but it's that's politics, but it's truth. And and you know, it just I'd be I'd be like, hey, sit down for a second. When I was there, this is what happened. It's not like that anymore. It was law enforcement and it changed. It was brotherhood and it changed. It was everybody kind of worked together, uh, uh even administration. True. Facts. We worked together. Then it it just the tide just turned. And we do have good administrators, I will say that. Some some are good. I have some friends that are administrators, and I know they're they're straight. But um, yeah, dude, you knew you really need to think about whether or not you want to do this because it it's it's different. You want to, you know, um, you want to go somewhere where it's, you know, you hey and law enforcement in general, it's it's a it's a this is what's happening to the border patrol. Ice. Ice. You see ice. The cops in New York City were getting do you see that video where they were getting slammed with uh sucks, dude. Snowballs and all that. The whole thing sucks, bro. Everything is yeah, you're right, it's out of control. So think about it. You know, think about it. Are you are you able to withstand that mentally? Spiritually. And spiritually. And do you are you, you know, where where's your spirit spirituality at? That's what saved me. I if I didn't have if I didn't have God and I didn't have, you know.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

You're you're I was gonna say I wasn't I'm not calling you old, but you're extremely experienced and wise. You could call me old, I don't know. Okay, okay. You're an old timer, man. You're an old timer. What matters in life, bro? Does materialistic, uh, the latest Nike, Jordans, money, does that matter, or does mental health and physical health matter?

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Yeah, mental medical health, mental health and physical health, but spiritual, uh, but that lasts forever. You know, whatever the Bible says whatsoever God does, he it lasts forever. And if you you if that's your focus, uh it it'll never end. But if hey, facts I'm gonna tell you, look, look, look at me. I'm an old man. Okay? I didn't mean it, kid. I'm not uh no, I'm an old man. I'm not physically the same as I used to be. Did I think back then that that was gonna happen? No, I didn't really think about it. And someday I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be breathing anymore. So if I don't send my life, put my life in God's hands with the Lord Jesus Christ, if I don't do that, then it's like smoke. Facts. It's like trying to hold smoke. You can't do it. Put hold some smoke in your hands for a while. That's what money, that's what you know, even titles, even titles, sergeant, and all. And and you know, people even even uh fame, anything that we value in this life, it's just a facade. It's just something to to for us to grab on to, a ploy of the of the devil to grab onto because it's gonna end. And now we're gonna be left standing there, you know, with nothing.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Yeah, I don't think God gives a crap if you were a PIO at a prison or uh command. I I you know I got all these awards and all that. Warden and D's from St. Quentin spewing lies on that.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Please, I used to work with that dude, bro. Um but anyway, so yeah, I I would say, hey, yes, your physical health is important, your mental health is really important. Family? Family. Um, this life has a real cost to your family, the you know, living, working in CDCR. But certain days, you know, my ex-wife ex-wife, but uh we I was involved in all these riots or anything. Uh let me use the phone. Uh I'm not I'm not gonna be home. What are you with? Some chick? I said, can you look at the caller ID? I said, I don't think some chick has at California State, whatever it says on there on the caller ID. It has a has a cost to your family. I I apologize to my boys one day. I said, I wish I would have spent more time with you than having to work 16-hour shifts and then I come home and sleep and then have to go do it again, come home and sleep. So basically I don't see you for two days.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

I mean, at the time though, you were doing what a man's supposed to do and working his ass off for his family.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Yeah.

ISU Drug Work And Dirty Staff

SPEAKER_03 43:49

And you, you know, it it's the the commitment you made. Right. And so speaking of commitment, I know I You said you got in there as an officer first. What prison? I was at SATIF.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

And uh, you know, I did it on on I got under our merit. I wasn't on a car. That's another thing. Don't get in any what year was this? It was uh 2008. Uh so I'd been in no 2007. So I'd been an officer for nine years.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

So you were in ISU when ISU was ISU? Because it changed, it would eventually flip. Yeah, and I I didn't I didn't suck nobody's penis.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

I'll say it, bro. Victor Bravo. I didn't tell, I didn't tell on nobody. Uh my thing was I was I was at under drug desk. I was drug interdiction, interdiction. And uh You know me so well, can't you just gotta mess with you? I heard you, I listened, hey, I pay attention, I read you too. 100%, bro.

SPEAKER_03 44:57

I'm all over the place. I'm a fucking hot mess right now, man. Don't mind me. Uh but anyway, uh yeah. So 2007, 2008, my boy's wearing black patches, has nine years as an officer. The big homies are in the shoe. Corcoran, Pelican Bay. What are you what are your duties? Are you are you looking at kites? Look at the dope. I was in a drug desk. I chased drugs.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

I was a drug chaser. I loved it. On all facilities or one assigned facility? Well, here I started out on a level four and then uh had that dirty partner. And then uh What rank was a dirty partner? She was an she was an officer. How dirty are we talking dirty? We're talking about criminal facilitation and murder and all that kind of stuff. Oh my god, bro, what a throw-up, dude. Hiding uh evidence, material evidence in a in a or destroying material evidence in a in a homicide, which is a crime in itself, taking uh taking kites from facility C to the shoe.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

I'm gonna flip a coin in the air right now. Was at the time the warden would eventually go and be the secretary of CDCR?

SPEAKER_02 46:04

Actually, here he was okay. So here that person was a captain, then a AW. Oh, then during the whole investigative process, he became the warden. And then became the secretary of CDCR. Yeah, and then became the secretary. And uh uh she was reportedly having sex with an inmate.

SPEAKER_03 46:27

Uh was that recently confirmed by a former convict?

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Yeah, it's uh I had to I spoke to a former convict, convict said that you know he was witness to that. Ooh. And um so anyway, um, and people, you know, and people say, well, you can't believe, you know, it's an inmate, former convict. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Oh, bro. For you to say we can't believe an inmate, who are you gonna believe? Warden and D's? The fucking warden? Come on, man, knock it out. We know how to read who's telling the truth and who's not.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

I'm just I tell people, hey, look, uh somebody who's who made a mistake in life and then they've turned themselves around and they're actually living the way they should. And giving back to the community. Yeah that actually gives more credence to what they're saying. 100%, bro, in God's eyes. Yeah, because you're you know, hey, I went through the fire and I'm here on the other side. My life is is because I I've had OGs and people that I work with. Convicts always are convict, and they never tell the truth.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

And it's almost, ooh, bro, we're navigating these questions. It's almost like you get indoctrinated to believe blue versus green, never trust an inmate, right? And rightfully so, you should you should not be trusting inmates while you're working. See, that's the thing. We and you are no longer working, we don't have a foot in the game. Yeah. So if an inmate lies to us, who gives a fuck, right? It ain't nothing to me or nothing to you, but you can be taking an inmate's word per se while still employed.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

I I so you gotta erase all that. It's human behavior, is human behavior. Whether you're an administrator who's a liar and thief, and or an ISU cop who's dirty, or you're an idiot. It's human behavior. I love it, bro. So anyway, uh, so an ISU at Satiff.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

Well, kind of dope, because back then it was not fentanyl.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

It was meth. It was a lot of meth.

SPEAKER_03 48:20

A lot of meth. And a lot of heroin, black dark heroin. For the viewers out there, bro, that are some are from outside of California, some have no relation with prison. Are people see the news? There's there's kilos. When you come to prison, uh gang or drug interdiction, what size are we looking at? Oh well, it could be up to a couple ounces or an ounce. Like ballpark, what is that like? Like to an You know, uh enough to stick in your ass?

SPEAKER_02 48:51

I don't know, I've never done that.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

You hear what I'm saying, man.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

A bindle, bindle size. Oh yeah. And uh uh we'll talk about a couple things that I've seen in back in the days of as much as people can stick in there is amazing, you know, the the amount.

SPEAKER_03 49:08

I mean how were you finding this dope while it was still in the bindle, while it was getting ready to be distributed? This is where it changed.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

So now with the advent of cell phones, inmates with cell phones, but I used to listen to the phone calls and read kites and read letters and decipher the letters. I knew, hey, uh yeah, uh bring Sue with you to visiting uh next next week. I look on his visitor list. No sue. There's no Sue. So what is that? That's dope. So you you kind of get you you learn the game. And that's how I would uh intercept, actually intercept the visitors with a search warrant. Let me ask you something.

SPEAKER_03 49:55

Sometimes, not all the times, some ISU officers will let the visiting officers know, hey man, we got a bus today. Is it should they do that? Should they not do that? Does it jeopardize the investigation? Is it good to do a courtesy? What's your experience on that? What's the right thing to do?

SPEAKER_02 50:10

It's a twofold thing because I had officers on the yard that I shared information with, and they warned the inmate. I had I called the building there, the inmate was on the phone. Hey, who's on phone C? Hear the window slide, hey, Jimenez from IS1, you want to know what your name is. And I'm like, oh fuck, dude. Because here's the thing that uh back then we didn't rat on on staff, but they thought that. The officers thought that we rated on staff.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

Right, because you see the black patches and you think that.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Yeah, and the uh hey dude, I'm not after you guys. I'm after these inmates. Don't share information. Anyway, I I caught the dude anyway, because the inmate told me. Officers Rodriguez uh told me on the R that you were after me. And every time he seen me come to Chow, he'd do the the cops uh song. And the end minutes is after you, man. And but he says, I didn't think I because I never seen him. Was he like was he slow? Like dumb? Was he trying to be cool? No, bro. I I think what it was is he he was probably jealous. Oh hated on ISU because he, you know, thought, I don't know. Maybe because he tried at one time, I think, and he didn't, he didn't get it.

SPEAKER_03 51:32

And were your hours longer than normal?

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Were you uh I I I was in I was in the office hours and hours sometimes, and you know Did you have to testify in court?

SPEAKER_03 51:46

Yes, several times. Did you ever transport any visitors to jail?

Visitor Smuggling Bust And Hard Truths

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Yes, several times. Uh one, and if I could mention this particular case, it was an inmate by the name of Richard Potts. Richard Potts had supposedly killed a young teenage girl, tried to rape her, and then when she resisted and fought him, he beat her to death and then put a rock in her sweat and sweater and hung, uh put her in the San Joaquin River, sunk her down. Uh anyway, he was on one of our facilities, and uh uh San Joaquin County Sheriff said, Hey, uh, we're gonna pick him up. Well, we want you guys to listen to his phone calls. So I'm listening to this dude, and he's there his wife is chewing him out saying, hey, they came with a search warrant, and you know, uh they took your clothes, they were in your car, and all this stuff, and and anyway, so she, I don't know, she knew, but she kind of he kind of like reeled her in again. And oh but that's that's nothing. Don't worry about it. I gotta fight with my homeboys and all this stuff. Anyway, so I'm listening, and it's his parole day. So they the officers say we're gonna pick him up on a what they call a Raimi warrant, and we're gonna take him for murder. And I'm listening to their phone calls, and she tells he tells her to bring some dope on parole day so they can get high on the way on the way home. So they picked him up, uh, and he was in R. And we went around to Tower One so the officers get to get their weapons. And I didn't know what she was driving. I had no, I looked and everything. We had the you know, information, CDL, all that stuff, looking all trying to see what car she was driving. I said, Hey, pots, because he was in the back of the patrol car. I said, Hey, uh, uh, were you supposed to take the bus home to Stockton? Or oh no, man, my girl's supposed to pick me up. I said, Well, tell me what she's driving. I'll go let her know. You know, that you're gonna. So we I have a warrant, so I get over there. He says, Yeah, she's in a white, you know, whatever it was, Toyota. So I drive up, and she we're in a Jeep. We had a Jeep. State Jeep. He had like a white Jeep, and we used to drive. And anyway, we pulled up behind her so she could back out. And uh, she thought we were the Broly welcoming committee. She came out with a big old smile, and I said, Hey, uh, got a search warrant. She said, Are you kidding me? I said, Nope.

SPEAKER_03 54:40

So, anyway, she had a it was just a big old ball of What was that pot's um commitment offense that he had originally been in jail?

SPEAKER_02 54:48

He was robbery, I think.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

Oh, so not a murder, but they they caught him in a murderer.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

But they caught him in a murder afterwards. And taking her to jail, uh you were asking me about jail, we're taking her to Hamford, to Kings County jail in Hanford. And uh with my partner. Um, and we had to radio central controls, we had a female. That's another thing with you, cops. If you got a female and there's two males, you need to radio and tell them, hey, I got a female and give them the time so that they know the time you get to the jail and that they don't say, hey, they pull me over on the side of the road and they rape me and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

Yeah, it's probably better just to take a female officer at all times, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

Well, I'd have one for my partner, but uh um anyway, she's crying in the back seat. And she said, uh, my uh what happened to my old man? I said, he's going to jail for murder. She said, Oh, my kids aren't gonna see their daddy, you know, and she's crying, and I, dude, I lost it. I slammed on the brakes uh on the middle of Highway 43. Of course, nobody was behind us. And I turned around and I said, Hey lady, somebody's daughter didn't come home one night because of your old man. Shut up and stop crying. And my partner was like, his eyes got all big. Why'd you do that? It's what was her reaction? She didn't say another word until we get to the jail. But she went to prison to VSPW. Cheated? Yeah. For the dope? For the dope. Like back then they sent him for dope. Now they just send him a ticket. Give you a fucking parking ticket, bro, for dope. They don't send him for dope, they send them to a rehab program for trafficking. Anyway. And Potts got committed. Uh he got convicted of murder, committed to life.

SPEAKER_03 56:48

You ever see experience the visitors bring children to the visiting room uh while bringing in dope? See him, what again? Where a visitor will bring minors to the visiting room while bringing in dope.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

Yeah, they uh there were several inmates who used their kids, put it in their tennis shoe, uh, put it inside of a inside of you know whatever it is that they had. Some of them put it inside the baby stroller thing that they they held, and uh it wasn't nothing for for them to do that. So yeah, I I took real serious that job, that ISU job.

SPEAKER_03 57:35

Those uh federal cases you wanted me to bring up, were that as your time as an officer or when you were a sergeant or I was an officer.

FBI Child Murder Confession Case

SPEAKER_02 57:42

What were those about? Uh one of them was the first one was uh uh uh inmate by the name of Curtis Dean Anderson who was in prison doing 105 years for the rape and murder of a little girl in Santa Cruz. Well you probably paroled yesterday, man, with Gavin Newsom. Yeah. Well, um they suspected it was an FBI analyst that called me and said, I need you to do me a favor and mess. Actually, he came to my office and he said, I want you to mess with this inmate, mess with his brain. And I had officers that were in the housing unit, we don't want to mess with I'll go do it then. I would go in his cell and I would draw these numbers and on the floor. With what? Pull them out. Just no with a black marker and mess it with his brain. Or he came to the to the uh officer stations, hey, can I get some toilet paper? He was in a wheelchair. Oh, he was in a wheelchair. And uh they said, Yeah, you know you're supposed to get it on Saturdays. So I said, give me a give me a roll. So I'd walk over in front of all the inmates. Hey, of course it was the SMY yard. I said, Man, anytime you need anything, you call me. And I gave it to him. His celly moved out the same day, right? Didn't want to be around him. Right. So what the heck's going on with that? Anyway, they call him in. And what it was is there was a girl, her name was Amber Schwartz, and she was a daughter of a cop in Pannole. You know where Pannol is up in the Bay Area? Yeah. And he was killed in the line of duty while she was still in her mother's stomach.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 59:23

So she were she was eight years old, and she went missing. And they suspected this Kurtistine Anderson of taking her. So I sat on the the one-way glass and watched the FBI interview this guy. While he's a California inmate. While he's an inmate. And uh this dude confessed to five other child murders, including hers, and then a and a prostitute. And the and I want you guys to think about this, and people that are that are not concerned about inmates paroling when they're child molesters and all that kind of stuff. This guy, uh the FBI said, You don't seem to have any remorse. He said, What remorse? From birth to death, he said, if that's what I like, I'll have sex with it. And I just I sat there and I was like amazed at this dude with and he was just talking about it like it was nothing. He goes, Well, I I took that little girl Amber and I took her to Arizona and I abused her while we were driving, gave her peach schnops and got her, you know, sedated. And then I strangled her and buried her in Arizona. Well, the mom is still alive, she wanted to know where her daughter was. So we were gonna take a trip, me and the FBI, to take him to Arizona. Of course, it would have been uh, you know, another officer with us, but to find the body. Which is something I wasn't looking forward to, but still uh for some reason this inmate trusted me, even though I messed with him. Anyway, I come to uh to work in the morning in the ISU office, and two of my partners are there. I said, Hey, what are you doing? No, an ISU at SATA if we were in charge of if there was an inmate death, we had to go, didn't matter what time. He hung himself and go and and uh take their fingerprints and take their pictures at the hospital. And I said, What are you guys doing here? Oh, he had an inmate death last night. Who inmate Anderson? I said Curtis Dean Anderson? He said, Yeah. He died of liver failure in the in the hospital. Bro, I called that inmate that uh FBI agent. He almost started well, he did start crying. He said, We were gonna give that woman some closure. She came out on the news years ago and talked about the FBI helping to to uh I didn't want no credit, but you know, I did help try to find this dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:25

You're good at reading people. Did did he have evil energy emanating for him?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

Yeah, he was just, I don't know, bro. Somebody who could sit there and someone who could sit there and talk about murdering kids and raping kids like it was nothing. It just did that make you furious inside? Oh, yeah, of course. It was one of those things where you're like, man, I wish this dude was this dude wasn't alive. Correct. No, I get it, bro. I wish he wasn't on the face of the earth. 100%. But you know, grant yourself this, he's there's more to take his place.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

And the more out there that that took his place. How many? Let's be realistic, bro. We both worked in fucking California prisons. There's a lot more of those motherfuckers out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Oh, absolutely. And it got to the point where, you know, I I stopped reading the C files. Oh, facts.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:21

Um you know, it it just dude, like that's fucking nuts. I didn't even know that about you ever, and not even didn't even bring that up on the last interview, dude. What was that's some like Hollywood type shit, like the movie 7?

Tupac Lead And Retaliation Claims

SPEAKER_02 1:03:35

Yeah, I yeah, I I it it affected me deeply because I wish we would have got that woman some closure. The other thing Is that what bothered you the most? Yeah. Because if I was a parent and somebody killed my kid, or I want to know where the parent where the kid was at. Um then the second one you were asking me, we we talked about it. Um I got a call from the FBI regarding the Tupac Biggie Smalls case. And it was an inmate by the name of they wanted to interview an in this inmate. Uh they wanted to interview this inmate because owned the studio where they the original Death Roll Records was at. And he had committed murder. Um and this dude was blind, now blind, and uh in a wheelchair. Anyway, he was on the SNY yard at Santaf. And they wanted to talk to him because on the day that Tupac was killed, one of the person that was with Tupac had and his cell phone. And um so he had inform information about some some corruption. I'm not gonna say where. Uh I don't want to talk too much because it was the FBI case. But I sat there, same thing under one-way glass and watched them interview this guy. Uh but I got called to the when this first started, I got called to the warden's office. Was acting warden back then, uh Kathy Allison. And uh bro, she called me on when you're in ICU, you get Thanksgiving and the day after off. She called me the day after. So I head in, get there, and there's two FBI agents there. And she says, they want to talk to this inmate. And they want to talk to him on the phone, but they don't want to be on the IMARs because they don't want to be recorded. I said, Okay. She said, Well, I know. Officer Jimenez, Officer Jimenez can take him to the sergeant's office and and and then they Dial the phone. I said, uh Miss Allison, I said, uh, I just got a bunch of bus on that yard and send some of those family members on that yard to jail. I take him to the ISU office. When he comes out, I don't care if it's an SNY yard, they're gonna stab him. Right. How about if I ducket him to visiting for an attorney visit on a day that there's no visiting, I'll be in there, I'll dial my ISU phone and have it on speaker, and then they can talk. So they did that several times. And uh um I don't know exactly where it went because I got booted from ISU As an officer? As an officer, and I got charged by Kathy Allison for what? For giving it in made a phone call when she just told me that was cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

So anyway, uh but that whole uh how did that why how did that transpire? Did it go south? Did she get called to the carpet? Or she just her? Yeah, why would she throw you in?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

I mean, that's because that's when they were after me for exposing the dirty female sacrificial lamb. Yeah, and they got they got they wanted me to shut up because Damn bro, it seems like that's another thing. Hey, listen, you officers out there. During that whole time when I turned on my dirty partner and and dirty administration, I had people tell me to be quiet and to hey, just it's if you just you're quiet, they're just gonna, it'll just fade into I can't do that because I'm not gonna disrespect the badge. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna stand for what I believe in. And they went after me hard.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:55

They like I said, they tried to send me to prison. It it's even more than the badge, bro. It's your own personal belief system. Yeah. You're not going to um betray your own personal belief system. True. For no amount of money, no title, no, hey, look the other way. There is no looking the other way, dude. True. And my mom, she's in heaven now. We both have children. Yeah. What better gift to let our children know? Like, hey, we're not built like that, dude. You see something wrong, you fucking address it. You know what, you know when my my sons found out about everything that went on? My podcast the last time.

unknown 1:08:29

You see.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:29

We're about to learn a lot more.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:31

Yeah, you seem they they didn't know all the stuff that went on because I didn't tell them.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:36

That is a trend I see amongst correctional officers, man. They they we, including myself, never said one word about the job to our family. Including my father.

Mental Health Identity And Suicide Risk

SPEAKER_02 1:08:51

Yeah. Yeah. I you know, I my wife do then wife do about it, but I didn't I didn't let my boys know about it. And it's to protect them, right? They don't need to know all of the mess. No. And it, you know, uh, you know, my son had a very positive reaction for the podcast, but um, yeah, it's it they keep it inside and then and it's not good for your your it's not good for your mental health.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

What does it do to one's mental health? Uh operating against one's own belief system.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

Oh, yeah, you begin to begin to doubt yourself. You know, you may have uh almost like a self-disrespect, right? Because you gotta love yourself. You gotta love yourself. I'm glad you said that. Because even Jesus said you gotta love your neighbor as you love yourself. So if you you gotta love yourself also.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:48

Loving yourself from you, a manly man, telling me that I under I get it, right? Because I had to learn how to love myself. But it's important that the crowd out there understands, especially the men, because there's this fake machismo bravado bullshit that I was fully uh guilty of. But you actually have to love yourself and forgive yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:08

Yeah. Yeah, and and you know, you begin to compromise and everything, and then after a while, it's like, hey, it's like it becomes almost normal. Then you don't get respect from from people that you you work with, you know, that are that are an up and up, they look at you different, and then you begin all that. I have a real dear friend, and that guy was the best officer I've ever seen. And they began to beride him only because he was at Kern Valley, Kern Valley, because he squashed something between Soranios who were gonna assault staff. He went and talked to Shaw Collar, which is unheard of, and uh squashed it basically, made a misunderstanding better. The staff began to call him a snitch and an inmate lover, put it on social media and all that. They did, and he got depressed, it messed with his brain so much because he loved the job, right? And he dude, he killed himself. And and you know, uh, you and I talk about this before. You can't just have the job. You gotta have family, you gotta have other things, hobbies, you gotta have your happy chips in other places. If you just have it in one place, that place gets tipped over, it's all gone.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:35

You gotta be Kenny the man, not Kenny the lieutenant. You can't make that at your identity.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

True. And and like I've always said, uh, you know, this this battle that we have uh in the department and corruption and all that, that's a spiritual thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

Facts.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:53

Good versus evil.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:54

It's a spiritual thing, and it's not gonna change unless it's changed. I was in the army, I know about teamwork. I coach, obviously, eight youth softball girls. I know about teamwork. I'm gonna call out the elephant in the room. The officers are divided in so many different ways, and by design, by administration's designs, right? Turn on him, tell on her, tell on each other, throw each other under the fucking bus, be my little bitch, right? Go play sports with inmates. What needs to happen? Would you say they need to consolidate and at least get on somewhat of the same page to make change? Because right now, if you have one candy in the department or one hectare, that's not gonna cause change, dude. Yeah, that's that's few and in between.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:40

Yeah, I I believe that it's gotta start. Well, where do you see that? You see it from your leaders. So it's gotta start with leaders who give them that uh I'll say that to our our friend that we talked about at the beginning. You gotta be a you gotta be the one to set the example, the tone, and and bring them to the point where they understand it's not the money. It's not, hey, I got a uniform and a badge. That badge don't mean crap. I took I took a uniform when I was at the academy and I threw it on the ground in front of the the the uh cadets and I said, that's what that means, unless you got it here. I'm glad you're saying that. If you don't have it here, then as soon as you step up to somebody, they're gonna see through that badge in that uniform and see exactly who you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:39

And it doesn't even matter if you're a mechanic or you work at Subway and make sandwiches or you're a plumber or you're a CO. As long as you carry yourself appropriately and respect people, honor people, have integrity, you're gonna be fine throughout life, man.

Unlawful Orders Put It In Writing

SPEAKER_02 1:13:53

And so that needs to happen. Um people need to start standing up. So some administrator gives you an unlawful order, you need to speak up. You tell me, hey, like you've said before, put it in writing. Put it in, send me an email. They won't put it in email because now everybody has emails. When I first started, nobody had emails if for the sergeants and lieutenants. Uh but now they, you know, send me an email. You don't want me to cuff an inmate well because he doesn't want to? Oh send me an email.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:22

Okay, let's play this game, can he? We know penal code, right? I'm pretty sure penal code has not changed. Actually, I'm 100% sure it has not changed. Penal code dictates a peace officer can place a person in restraints for that person's safety and your safety. Yeah. That's what the penal code states. Yes. Does a verbal directive, not written, not policy, override that? No. Penal code? No. No.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:55

No. I don't care what. Keep on saying it, it ain't gonna happen. And like the people told me, wow, don't stop making waves and stop.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:07

I can't. If you you told me a story earlier, you said I saw that inmate come out of the housing unit without being handcuffed. Yeah. Do officers have the right and freedom to place inmates in restraint? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Does that make their job safer?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:25

Yeah. And uh and that's and all you got to do if it's required is you put that in writing. Something happens, goes south, or whatever. Most of the time it doesn't. Because you've just d yes, that's a way to de-escalate things, also. If you place an inmate now, he's restrained. Yeah, putting an inmate in handcuffs is a de-escalation technique. You put him in the you put him in handcuffs, and uh, hey, you're not gonna uh so I I learned this when I first started. Uh officer was getting into it with an inmate hard. The inmate was in his face. We went and cuffed him up. Well, that officer was gonna escort him. No, right. You escort him that way. If he gets squirrely and you gotta dump him, I don't have a problem with him saying, hey, the only reason you dumped me is because we had a situation. So de-escalate it, and then you might not have a situation where you have to Were you a supervisor when that decision was made?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:27

I would know. I was an I was an officer. Did a supervisor make that decision? Or is it an officer? Yes, a lieutenant. Well, that okay, good. Now, I mean, we're trying to school these young dummies, and when I say young dummies, I mean officers, but it's like fucking trying to lead, like talking to a wall. What about these young sergeants and lieutenants? That's an excellent decision. Hey, man, you're not gonna escort them. What other on-the-spot corrections decisions can supervisors make to alleviate liability? Such as that one. Help me out here. What do you what do you what I'm asking is like that lieutenant saw that it would be an issue for that officer to escort that in.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:14

Do do supervisors have that authority?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

I I don't know any supervisor that would never see something happen. You just sit there and let it happen. When did you when did you retire? You got the whole department full of that shit now. Yeah, I know, but I'm just saying that's just that's just me. So when you become secretary, send me back to work coming out. Oh, God. I want to go back anyway. Um, yeah, it look, if you're a lieutenant and you see things going on, uh it's just I told you before in the last episode we had, my ISU cops. I was a ISU lieutenant, and they were up on the on the second tier doing a search, and I seen them going after, you know, the inmate with verbal, and I went, I ran up there and the dude was Oh, yeah, on the on the bunk. I said, So directing them, don't do that again. That that was gonna harm your safety. The dude had a handcuff, he could have used it as a weapon, he's resisting you. Your job is to, you know, use force, but you have every single thing in the use of force criteria in that particular situation. So as a lieutenant, I'm not getting on to them because I'm better than them. Right. I'm getting on to them because I'm trying to teach them. That's like we're sitting here right now. We're not better than anybody, we're not better than the officers are out there or a sergeant. Well, we were there once. We're just trying to help. Facts. Right? We're not disgruntled.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

No. Disgruntled uh uh ex-employee. As a lieutenant, you mentioned you did a lot of OJT with officers. And you got me thinking that I used to show the officers a use of force critique of 3010. And I used to tell them, look, when you use force, this is what I have to fill out as a lieutenant. Did I have to make sure you should make sure you're in compliance before, during, and after the use of force uh application. Yeah, absolutely. What other stuff can lieutenant is that is that beneficial to the officer?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:21

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I I I never stop, and you should never, as a supervisor, stop. And we get busy, they get administration gives garbage stuff to to work on, uh memos or you know, stuff that's ridiculous to keep you busy. But in your time, yeah, you got to do your tour. Stop for a little while and talk to, especially if they're young. You know, especially if they're inexperienced. Talk to them for a while. Explain to them things, ways stuff's going on in the housing unit. I had a school cadet of mine, it means we're getting crazy, a DVI in the in the day room, and uh, they weren't listening. They're not supposed to be on the second or third tier where they were up there. I said, Hey, look, come here, I want to talk to you for a minute. I said, What do you think you should do? He goes, I don't know. Maybe we should, you know, get in a situation where we could pepper spram or do it. I said, do. I say, listen, you had to use this up here. Uh my thing is you gotta you got a breaker box. It's NBA playoffs. Might accidentally get tripped and lose uh electricity, and then they're not gonna be able to watch the game, and they come to you and say, Oh, okay. Well, I don't know. That disrespect probably floated down to that. You let them know, you go, oh, we might get in trouble for that. I said, usually in your your brain is not gonna get you in trouble. I'm a lieutenant right here. I'm not gonna turn you in for for, hey, clicking a butt uh breaker box and then turn it in back. Yeah, I know. But it's like we said, you gotta use this thing up here. Anyway, so yeah. But there's situations as a supervisor where you can sit there and they have an idea about something, but you know the right way to do things, so you explain it to them.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:27

So I know there's senior correctional officers, there's sergeants and lieutenants that have tried their hardest, so they're blue in the face, to try to give these new officers advice. And the feedback I'm getting is that they're just unwilling to accept it. What advice do you have? Would you say, hey, dude, just keep doing it, man. Just keep trying to help these guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:46

Yeah, I well.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:49

Because that's how I feel. Like, hey, man, I know they're stubborn, I know that it's hard-headed, but I'm not gonna give up. I can't quit on them. We only got children.

Academy Standards Scenarios And Assaults

SPEAKER_02 1:21:56

We only got so much time, but I think that whole thing uh goes back to the way that they're taught at the academy and things like that. Um the way that they're especially, you know, when they had a you you said it before. And Jimmy that was here talked about it. Um there should be a higher standard. They've lowered the standard so much to the point where you know what's more important for them is hey, it costs$45,000,$50,000 to get a uh cadet through the academy. We don't want to kick them out because you know we're losing all that money. That becomes more important than the actual uh, hey, look, you're you're not meant for this. You're not meant for this. I got in your face.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:50

Let's keep it real though. They want the passive correctional officer. And why do they want the passive correctional officer? So that they can follow their illegal verbal orders so that they can get the promotion up to the next step in headquarters. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:06

It it's having puppets. You know, you want you want puppets. You want puppets. Yeah, you don't want somebody to make a decision on their own. But that's what the thing with the you go through that whole academy, teach them how to do things the right way, and then they know how to make good decisions and good fast decisions because hey, um, I used to, I don't know, this is me. I was I would think about situations and stuff, and what would I do? Scenarios. Scenarios, run them constantly through my brain uh on the way to work. I had an hour commute, so I'd on the way to work or on the way home. Not trying not to on the way home because you don't want to take that home with you. But I would have, you know, did different scenarios running around. That way when it happened, I wasn't slow, I was fast because I knew what to, because I already, what's the right thing to do in that situation?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:59

Okay, this is the right thing to do. You know what Jimmy said when he was sitting there uh a couple weeks ago? I said, hey, when an officer is getting about to get assaulted, should he be thinking about uh getting fired? Neither he shouldn't be thinking at all, man. He should just be acting. Because you're thinking, you're already behind the curve. Yeah, right then.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:22

Because you you coach, you coach baseball. Do you want your player out there thinking ahead of time what I'm gonna do with the ball or try what am I gonna do with it? And then they're trying to decide. You can't decide when things are happening. You're in an environment where you could lose your life, you could die, you could be stabbed in the neck, you could be like Manny Gonzalez and have your head almost cut off.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:49

In your entire career, have you ever heard of officers getting stabbed?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:56

Oh, yeah, I had a close friend of mine that got stabbed in the back uh by an East Coast Crib facility C at Satiff, and he was done with his career. And here's what happens, and I know personally, uh they don't care about you, the administration didn't care about him at all. I mean, he took care of him, he got his, you know, uh IDL or whatever, and but uh it was like, hey, you you took one for the team, but you know what, you're just we'll fill you in when you medically retire. And they didn't, you know, it's not the the a dude took one for the team, and it was kind of to me like an honor for him. I love that guy, and uh they should have treated him a lot better, but they won't because you're just a you're just a number. So you think about yourself. I mean, he you're getting yourself in a situation and you end up getting stabbed.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:54

Um have you heard of officers getting brutally beaten?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:00

I had an officer, believe this or not, at VSPW at a women's prison. Two inmates pulled her left eyeball out of its socket. It was hanging. A correction officer? A correction officer. They the inmates pulled her uh eyeball out, and she had to medically retire. And I I showed up later. There was a sergeant on the yard. I came from another yard that was next to it, and I was talking to the officers. I said, Who used force? Nobody. What the heck are you talking about? They were pulling her pulling her hair, punching her in a pull her eyeball. You look, I'm standing here as a sergeant, and here's what I'm gonna tell you they touch each other, we pepper spray them, or use the baton or whatever. They touch us, it's different. I said, you go until they're they're not resisting at all. You go your hardest.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:02

You go hard and you go fast, right? Within policy.

unknown 1:27:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:06

Because the use of force policy doesn't state I have to hit you with 20% of my might. I'm gonna hit you motherfucker with 120%. Yeah, because the use of force policy says I can, right? Right. I tell I used to tell them go hard and go fucking fast because it's a short window, and that window will close. And if you do anything after, you're fucked. It's complicated force.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:25

Well, I took it like I said it like this. Maybe I'm wrong. I would tell him, hey, look, I'm the sergeant. I'm walking up, use force. Whatever you use, you use however you use it because you're gonna report it. But if I see it, guess what I gotta do? You gotta write. So do whatever you're gonna do whatever you're gonna do and handle it because they hurt one of us. You gotta, they gotta pay the price.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:52

I hear what you're saying. I I I fucking hit it, bro. I was in the military and I was in corrections, right? And a lot of people might not agree with. That. And a lot of people don't understand the way corrections works. And a lot of people might say, hey, no, you're a CO, you should be held to a higher standard. But all we're saying is, hey, if there's a fucking staff assault per the fucking penal code in Title 15, you can overcome resistance, uh, subdue an attacker. You have a green light. We call that a green light. Sure. You have a fucking green light. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:25

And of course, because we're not going to encourage any unnecessary use of force and we don't want to give the wrong impression, you're going to act hard and you're going to act fast. And then you're going to restrain the individual.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:36

Then you're going to write your reports. Then everybody's going to go under investigation regardless.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:41

This is going to happen regardless.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:43

Yeah. So, you know, but I've seen that. I've seen you know people get beat down really good. Um, I've been assaulted twice, but I it was it was the one institution? No. My wife. No, I'm just joking. Uh no, at Satiff. Got punched in the mouth, face, I mean, and uh fought with a mate on the tear. We talked about it before. Came out. Came out swinging with for no for I didn't know the reason.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:14

He just came out and but didn't you give me another example where you said the big, big ass dude came down and you said, like, hey man, I'm gonna have to call the sergeant or the sergeant comes here. That was oh, that was my partner.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:26

You mean talking about him de-escalating? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was my partner. He was just real good at that. Oh, your partner would be like, hey, I'm gonna have to call the sergeant. He's gonna be he's gonna be pissed off. And he's eating his donuts, drinking his coffee. And then I'm gonna I'm gonna walk out and return him and tell him my story. You're he's not even gonna hear your story. So the dude, you know, it we were just talking earlier about techniques and his brain, he was catching it. Yeah, you know what? He's right. Strategy. I know how the sergeants are. Yeah. And he and but he added, hey, I'm gonna work on your bed move.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:59

Would you call that bluffing? It's almost almost like bluffing, huh? Kinda. In a way. But the sergeants we had were like that. Right. Right. You're not really bluffing, you're kind of just, you know, motivating him to do the right thing.

unknown 1:30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:10

Prompting him.

Women’s Prison Reality And Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 1:30:11

Yeah. So you're talking about VSPW. That was the most interesting time in my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:17

How was it working with the female inmates?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:20

It was crazy. Um, but I I learned a lot. I've I learned a lot. Uh, one thing I learned is the female inmates would fight all the time, and they would fight over their relationships and stuff. That was their main thing. Were they good for the gangs? Were they fist bunch? Yeah, the first time I used pepper spray there, they were slinging it. I mean, it was a good fight. I even had an inmate tell me later, Sarge, that was the best fancy fight I've seen in a long time. And I said, they were going at it. Where were they fighting instead of a building? Well, a bulldog and a white girl, and uh, they were fighting in the chaw. Damn. And I pepper sprayed in the chaw, which made everybody mad. But anyway, so uh, but female inmates they would be at their heightened like anger. But I learned something. The human body can't stay like that unless it's drug-induced for more than 15 minutes. They gotta start to come down. Do you can't stay up like that? Male and female? From your experience, what you've seen? Humans. Humans. Unless it's drug-induced or there's some, yeah. So they would they start to come down. So these girls, we'd have them in the holding cell. They'd be screaming, calling me all kinds of names. Go in my office, shut the door.

unknown 1:31:33

15 minutes ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:35

My God. Sarge, we're sorry. Start crying. We're sorry. I said, Are you guys gonna get along? Can I do a chrono and you guys go back? And they'd go back with the in each other's hold it, putting an arm around each other, which is different than males. They had an arm around each other walking. But anyway, I've seen male inmates put their arms around each other. When I was in ISU, uh we were doing some surprise searches. And uh I was ISU sergeant, and there was a particular inmate who was the drug dealer on the yard, and she had her whole locker full. She had five lockers in in one room full of stuff. I mean full of stuff. So they're searching, my cops are searching, and he pulls out a dildo. He pulls out a actual battery-powered vibrator, and he said, What the heck is this? And I said, I looked at it, I said, it's got a chrono attached to it. It's from a doctor. Did you have gloves? The doctor, yeah. No, I was I was just uh But it's from a doctor. I said, We can't take it from her. She's it's hers. And I but I said, you know what? I'll call the yard sergeant. So I had, hey, come over here. Comes over to the building. I said, He said, What the heck is that? I said, It's a vibrator. She can have that. But we're gonna put it in your office, and she's got to chit it out, and she gets it. He said, You're kidding me. I said, No, I'm just messing with you. I'm just messing with you. Were that considered a DME? Huh? Were that considered a DME? Yes. She got it from an oncologist. Doctor gave it to her because she was going through radiation or something. Radiation? What did that have to do with radiation? I don't know. So it's a dilator, a vaginal dilator. That's the the technical name for it. But so uh but they would they had the girls that had the hustle that would make that kind of stuff you know, out of broom handles or whatever, and all kinds of stuff for the girls. You see, I seen stuff, and uh it it was hard to handle because I'm a male. But the thing is, the inmates would come some when I first got there, and they gotta test you to see if you're you're that guy. What guy? Like gonna bite. Okay, come in with no bra. Oh, hell no. I gotta uh go back and get dressed. Right. Always had a female. Right. I'm not gonna get up, get caught up like that. But here's the problem with my scoundrel self. I was I was mean. You were mean? I was mean to them. I would clown them and mess with them so much that they wouldn't want to talk to me. They would see me in the yard and they'd turn around and go the other way. Wait a minute. Were you? Here's what I would say. Hey, come here. Not doing dope anymore, are you? No. How do you know that, Sarge? Uh, you got really fat.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:46

You were a sergeant. Yeah, yeah. So you found your groove as a Sarge, bro. You got more vocal.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:51

I would mess with them and then they wouldn't mess with me. They wouldn't, they wouldn't disrespect me. They wouldn't try to do that sexual thing with me because they knew I wasn't biting. And that was the part where you know you have to really, really watch yourself. That's a tactic that you were using. Yeah. I you know, I don't know if I'd do that again now, but I mean it worked. It was a tactic. You're letting them know like it was not here's the line. It was not a humane thing to do, but you know what I mean? Uh uh it was a little uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:25

But uh Well, what were some other styles that one would be able to adopt working a female institution? Like, like was there dirty called guys that were totally straight?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:36

Like, hey, it's all business. It has to be that way, dude. You know, I was a jokester. I liked m telling jokes and talking, but they had guys, sergeants that were, you know, just okay, boom, boom, that was it. Um, but we had a lot of sergeants that were not a lot, but there was a few that man. I I was an ISU and I got a call. I was a sergeant. Hey, uh, this is so and so. Uh I used to be an inmate there. I'm a I'm a parole from there and such and such a date. I've been living with one of your sergeants, and uh he beat the hell out of me the other night.

unknown 1:36:17

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:18

And I was like, You think they were doing this shit as officers? What which sergeant, which sergeant are you talking about? And she told me the sergeant's name. I said, he's retired. I said, however, are you still a parolee? No, I discharged. I said, Well, ma'am, I said, You have no business calling here. I said, What you need to do is call your local sheriff's office. We don't have jurisdiction over you, and we don't have jurisdiction over the sergeant because he's retired. But he was doing that. He wasn't just doing that. He had retired a year after they had started their relationship. So he was with her while he was a sergeant, but he just didn't. And what's funny is he showed up at DVI when I was a lieutenant as a stinking retired annuity. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. Yes, he did. I'm gonna put that in there pictures, bro.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:09

He showed up, he showed up as a retired annuity, and I'm like, oh crap. Some of this stuff could nobody could possibly make it up, huh? No.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:19

No, and you see the people that are compromised like that.

Compatibility Chronos And Preventable Murders

SPEAKER_03 1:37:22

But let's talk about compromise, and this all circles back to what we've been stating because you mentioned compatibility chrono when the two broads were going at it, right? Recently at Salinas Valley State Prison, that's been in the headlines, there was a murder. Yeah. In the evening time.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:43

Earlier that same day, the victim was stabbed by an inmate manufactured weapon. The 40 millimeter was utilized. The sergeant may or may not have wrote a compatibility chrono, keeping him on the facility. Use a weapon? Use the fucking weapon. It's a felony, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:07

How do you compati how do you do a compatibility on a fen on a felony? I don't understand that. I want you to elaborate on why it's not a good idea to do that. Well, okay, so the department may get you, but you may end up in a lawsuit somewhere down the line. Because that dude was, you know, you should have protected. So I know personally, but you should have protected it's your job. You're the supervisor. Right? You're the last, you're not the housing union officer, but you're the next line of defense. I'm not signing no compatibility crown. Oh, this dude's going to the hole. Well, they don't want him in the hole. Sorry. Let them say, write something and say, let the management administration say, or the lieutenant or the captain say he's not going to the hole, but I'm not.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:57

Let's role play. You're the sergeant. Um, I'm the lieutenant. I don't want you to lock up that inmate. I'm locked, I'm locking him up.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:07

And if you don't, then send me an email. Say we're not locking this inmate up. If not, I'm locking up.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:14

If not, I'm locking him up. He's going to Yeah, let me rephrase that. You're the lieutenant fully capable of locking up an inmate. Yep. And I'm the captain. And I call you and I say, hey man, nah, send him back to the pad.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:27

Nope. I'm not risking my life, my livelihood, my career, my integrity for your whatever it is that you have going on, and your politics or whatever you want to play. You're not playing by the law, you're playing by your own ideas about things. So forget all that. I know that because going back to going backwards to my ex-partner in ISU, she sees an uh inmate. You're right. Say, hey, kill this dude. Got it on videotape. Right. And then they don't lock him up. She doesn't. She shares that information with the AW and they don't lock him up, and then he gets killed.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:10

Why is it a good idea for correctional officers to follow the law?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:16

Well, first of all, this is because you swore to. Second of all, you don't know when that thing's gonna jump up and bite you, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:25

Um why is it a good idea for officers to follow policy and procedure as opposed to unlawful verbal directives?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:34

Oh, so and I think I've told you before, whenever I would talk to cosets that would come, I tell them, hey, where's your loyalty? Uh to the ward to my sergeant, to my partners. Absolutely not. What if they tell you to break the law? You swore to uphold the law, the constitution, and the laws of the state of California. Now you got the penal code, now you got the Title 15, now you got I don't care what anybody says. That is your loyalty to do the right thing because you might end up under investigation. No, you will end up under investigation. You will, but you'll you'll be okay because you followed what you were supposed to follow. There ain't no judge alive that's gonna say, uh, that officer followed the law. He needs to yeah, he needs to be severely punished. Administrators might say that, but not a judge. I don't see a judge saying that.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:38

How important is it that within the first year, as soon as the officers hit the line, they start learning, understanding policy and why.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:50

That's the well, that's your first of all, that's your directive. Second of all, that that's what you've got to do because and also here's another thing. If you follow the law, guess who sees the inmates. They know that you're no nonsense. I've had inmates at the beginning tell me, hey, we'll we'll clean up some mess here if we just bring us some taco bell. I went in and tore up their house. Why'd you disrespect my house like that? I said, Why'd you disrespect me? You know I can't do that kind of stuff. And they see. You know who else is? Your partner. You know who else is? Your sergeant.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:29

You know who else is? Your lieutenant. My boy Don Garrett, God bless Don Garrett, shout out to Don Garrett from CDCR fired up. He's really hampering on these officers lately, saying the whole mentality of do your eight and hit the gate. Meaning, show up, bury my head in the sand, do the bare minimum. Why is it not a good idea to show up to work, crossing your fingers, squeezing your butthole tight, and hoping that nothing happens?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:56

Someday you might you might get no eight and you might not come through the gate. Seriously, right? You might not get an eight, you might not get anything, and you might not even be able to come through the gate because you've got your little pictures right there on the on the entrance building, no entrance.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:14

Oh my god, bro. This is wild. This conversation is giving me PTSD, bro. We were gonna go a bunch of different well, we covered the topics, but I'm like, my goal is always to help these new officers, or I put them up on game.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:27

Oh no, no, I throw as much game as them as possible. Everybody that I've that I talk to that that are still my, you know, they're my friends that are still in the department, some of them higher, some of them lower. That's our whole that's our conversation. Which is what? Which is the meat and potatoes of stinking corrections and how we've got so far away from it.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:53

And but do you see the microcosm as uh of society though? Society as a whole has gotten away from God and like logic and common sense as a whole, yeah. It just filtered into the correctional system. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:09

I I could I see that completely. And uh I once I moved to Alabama, uh, I'm not bragging or anything, but it's a lot different. There's a lot of people that have respect for each other, and it's uh the kids, they're lazy, but they don't have that, they have that respect, they have that automatic, uh, they've been built built-built, they I've been called sir so many times in my life, um, you know, by these kids.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:43

Depends on where you're at, I think. I have a seven-year-old daughter. Why is it important for her to respect their elders? Sir, ma'am, yes, no, yes, please, thank you. Why is that important? The foundation.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:57

Well, it sits with you your whole life. When you look somebody in the eyes, or when you're talking, you're looking at them in the eyes. When you're shaking their hand, you're giving a firm handshake. When you're talking, you do it with respect. Because you know what? That stuff's gonna come back. The Bible says you throw your bitter bread on the waters, it'll come back. Not many days from now, it's pretty soon. It'll come back. You have that respect, you have that upbringing. It's gonna stay with you your whole life. And it'll come back to you. It's you know, you reap what you sow. People call it people call it karma, but it's not karma. It's it's the principle that God made is you you throw some seeds in the ground, it's gonna grow. You reap what you sow. Yeah, you you harvest, you harvest what you plant. 100%, bro.

DVI Leadership And FBI Street Operations

SPEAKER_03 1:45:49

And uh, so anyway, yeah, it's yeah, but um what uh dude, this I love this freaking conversation, bro. Yeah. What last parting words? The floor is yours, man. Anything I didn't cover that you wanted me to cover.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:04

The the time at DVI as a lieutenant. What happened there? Um I I I was there for I was a watch commander in first watch for a while. Um, had some situations where you know you have to be you're a watch commander, so you have to make a decision, whatever's going on. Um, you have to call the AOD, you have to, you know, you have to do a uh NOU or whatever you got to do. Uh so I had a lot of situations, believe it or not, at that institution. Um and then I got asked by the the warden to be ISU lieutenant. ISU, IGI, and IA all at the same time. And uh I had I had uh some of the best people that I've worked with in CDCR. Johnny Ray was one of them. Shout out to Johnny Ray, author of Yard Now he was a IGI and uh you know fortunately uh you know things happened, but anyway, I um I was able to uh work on several search warrants and and things. One of them was uh Operation Silent Night with the FBI. Nice. Uh we raided 49 houses at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:22

Northerners?

SPEAKER_02 1:47:23

In Woodland, yes. Yeah. Well, I was particular street gang working under an NF, uh Bosque Norte in Woodland, California. So we hit it with the FBI like 49 houses simultaneously. It sounded like stinking 4th of July across that town with the flashbangs and stuff like that. Uh recovered weapons, dope, honey oil labs, uh inmate one of the inmate, one of the gang members went out the back window and started shooting at the SSU agent. They they put him down. Okay. Didn't die, but they put him down. Anyway, so we had uh we worked in those situations and uh and and with the FBI, and that was just to me, it was aw. And the same same time we had some of those gang members at DVI, so we had our officers hit those cells at the same time, right? Uh, which was successful. Working something like that is working on the street for me. I did a lot of work on the street, a lot. And search warrants, house warrants uh from Sun Valley, uh Inglewood, uh Tracy, California. We were out on the street and plain clothes. The warden let us go in plain clothes. And uh there was a female who was gonna bring dope to the Caltrad yard for the minimum. Yeah. So they, you know, the minimum, they get the dope and then they shoot it inside. So she was gonna drop it. They followed, my guys followed her. I taught them how to do a rolling surveillance where they follow them for a while and then they pull off, and then the next one comes up. And then, so we were there, caught her. Um, but while we're standing there, I had a DA investigator next to me. And this dude across the street starts yelling, it was a blank, it was a civilian. No shirt, big white dude. And he's like, What? What do you want, punk? And he's jarring at him. I said, anyway, so we're searching, and I look up, and this fool's right next to the DA investigator, and the fight was on, bro. Damn, bro. We we were going at it, and because uh this DA investigator, he was 60 something years old, but he reached out and just he he went at it with this dude like like that. I said, Dang, bro, you're like Mr. Miyagi or something. And uh so anyway, we get in there, we tackle him, cuff him up, and uh Tracy. The canine, she's like, dang. She said, There were two of you standing there. And I looked up, there were seven. I said, That's how we do it. That's how we do it, man. Yeah. I mean, we will get one of us, you get all of us. And uh so the Chief Deputy Warden, when I call her and told her, she said, You guys ain't never gonna go out on the street anymore. Oh my god, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:21

You know how it goes. You know, but well, thank you, Kenny, for taking the time out here, man. The flight, bro. I'll have you on a third time, dude. Always love conversing with you.

Faith Integrity And Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_02 1:50:30

My my can I say a real quick parting word for officers? Um the integrity you have has to come from somewhere deep inside. And you can't have that on your own. You can only have that through Jesus Christ. That's it. I'm just saying. And uh it's not popular nowadays. People don't want to hear that kind of crap. Obviously not. I can attest to that. I uh so can I. I had incurable cancer. And I have to thank God for every day because I'm here. I got a miracle. Right? I got a miracle. Uh and I'm st you know, I'm living teaching high school and Alabama, you know, uh substitute teacher, coaching baseball and enjoying the farm life with my goats and chickens and my wife.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:32

But I'm just saying it has to come from where deep somewhere deep within. Facts. Maybe that's what they've been missing, bro. We've been trying to talk to them for three years. We've haven't hit hard on the Jesus like we've been hitting lately. It it just need it faith.

unknown 1:51:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:46

Faith.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:47

Yes, absolutely.

Subscribe And Closing

SPEAKER_03 1:51:49

Well, thanks, Kenny, for coming again, bro. And I said, you always have an open invitation here or San Diego, bro. My home. We've got to do a live together one of these days. Do it, man. I'm down. Cool. Appreciate it. Well, there you guys have it, folks. Another banger for you guys, man. We always bring it to you here on Hector Bravo Unhinged. If you like what you saw, make sure you hit the subscribe button. Love you. Keep pushing forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:19

Hector Bravo one hinge. Story never ends.